Cheers $imon. Rather than attempting to create a floor material that looked like something in particular, I deliberately created a material that could perform a couple of crucial tasks. First, I didn't want it to overpower the glasses themselves, so the colours were to be muted and basic. Second, it had to have a rigid linear or gridded surface detail, to reveal the refractive effect of the lenses as well as provide a clear perspective that informed the viewer about the model's position and orientation in space. Third, I wanted it to be a little bit reflective, to show off that particular ART attribute as well as increasing the sense of the glasses resting on a real surface.

It was generated from a wood panelling texture, softened considerably, with the same image applied to the bump field. The kinda ripply reflection was actually a happy accident, I had not expected a bump map to have such a strong effect on the specular reflection attribute (nice one Steve!). It does look kinda plasticy, but really it was intended to highlight the cool ART effects only.

Great work from everybody in this comp BTW, pushing Anim8or and the ART renderer to the limits with some really excellent results. It's also great to see so many anim8ors getting involved.

Hi, is there any way that this contest can be extended one (1) day more? I'm so busy lately, that I haven't had much time to work on the sunglasses, but I am going to do more on it today, so I was just wondering if the contest can be extended to April 21st, please?

Hi, is there any way that this contest can be extended one (1) day more?

The contest could theoretically be extended but... I think 2 weeks are enough. If I change the deadline 2 days before the contest ends, it would be unfair to the others and it would kinda depreciate the rules. You still have 48 hours, go for it!

I figure that the big benefit of entering these competitions is receiving CC from fellow Anim8ors, which can only be a positive thing. In this spirit, and hoping for similar CC of my own work, I offer the following opinions and observations on the submissions of my fellow contestants, in the order in which they appear in the poll.

3Dgeek: Nice colours! The material for the frames works very well, it does look like plastic. A bit of work around the hinges, and perhaps curving the lenses to give a bit of a refractive effect, would improve the image IMO. I would also decrease the intensity of the background reflections, they are a little distracting. Great to see your work mate, keep it up!

3D Joe Wiltshire: Kudos for having a go mate, and I like the idea of the 3D specs. The frame looks a bit too thick, and could use some more subdivisions to improve the silhouette. Also, the colour of the lenses looks a bit light, lacking in saturation. If these are using the ART dielectric effect for colour I would try tweaking the parameters to get a stronger colour.

baxter: Nice work baxter. The refractive effect of the lens provides some nice disruption to the shadows around the bottom of the frames. The nose pad placement looks a little odd, and the image would have been improved with a bit more detail around the hinges and by ensuring the ear pieces were sitting on the surface, but it's good work that demonstrates the ART refraction well.

captaindrewi: Cool glasses! I really like the smooth, streamlined shape, the seamless transition from frame to lens, and it's a very crisp render. It almost looks cartoony, I'm not sure why, but it's a good thing! Positioning a light, or bright object that could be reflected in the lenses, would make the surface look shinier; at the moment it looks a little matt. Great material construction, well done!

dwsel: Fantastic! The material looks very convincingly plastic, and the shadows and reflections are excellent. The only thing that distracts, and it has been mentioned before, is the thinness of the ear pieces. Really nice render.

floyd86: Excellent work, particularly the lenses themselves. I would have suggested a slightly different camera angle, to reveal more of the ear bits, and there seems to be an incongruous white line around the bottom of the frames, which slightly reduces the realism, but it's a minor thing.

Indian8or: Seriously cool model!! Is this thing real, or your own invention? If it's real, I want one! The only things that stand out as slight negatives are the texture stretching on the headband and the lack of shadows. One way to avoid the texture stretching problem is to construct the headband straightened out, apply the texture, then curve the band around using a modifier.

kreator: Great model mate, and really excellent demonstration of the dielectric ART effect. As in all things, it is the detail that makes or breaks an image, and the detail of the hardware in your image is just lovely. The thick lens in the background looks amazing, both in terms of model integrity and material selection. My only quibble would be the slightly wobbly ear bits, but that may well have been intentional.

lynn22: I love this image! The composition is faultless, and the placement of the sheet music (Schubert I believe) serves to highlight the antique nature of your spectacle design, as well as provide detail that can be distorted by the refractive quality of the lens. If I must give a crit, perhaps a bit more subdivision on the circular lens frames would have removed the slightly stepped appearance. Really excellent work!

menamarco: This is probably the most original design of all! The concept and model are absolutely brilliant, I cannot fault the model construction at all. The material for the bottle bottoms is absolutely perfect, really skilled control of the material editor! The material for the wire is less impressive, it looks a bit plasticy. Maybe giving it a reflective, silvery surface would look better. Excellent work, well done!

maestro: I like the originality of the design, and the use of lighting throws some interesting flares. Applying the ART dielectric feature to the lenses would really improve this image, at present the lenses appear opaque.

neirao: Nice clean modelling (in record time too!) and good use of the ART effects. The shadows are a little grainy, and the flat grey background gives the image little contrast, but the model is very good and it's good to see the image on which it was based.

onespirit5777: Great work, very original design. Is it based on a real pair of specs or is it your own design? They look like they would be heavy! The modelling is excellent, and the gold material is very convincing. My only crit would be the blue floor, which distracts from the model itself in my opinion. The use of Glossy Reflector on the floor does look very good, however, making it look a bit frosted.

$imon: Absolutely excellent model, as usual! The shadows are excellent and I particularly like the subtle grainy texture to the plastic frames, makes a big difference to the realism. The lenses themselves look a bit matt, not shiny like I would expect, but this might have been intentional. (The ear bits sticking in the ground is unfortunate, and I know what you mean about the rather large minimum rotation amount in Scene view. One workaround is to perform the rotation in Object mode, which allows a much finer degree of rotation. If the model is made up of more than one object, you can make those objects "child" objects of the frame in Scene mode, in respect to both position and orientation, prior to performing the rotation.)

Thanks to Steve and the Anim8or admins for setting up these comps, and I hope they continue to be as popular as the first two have proved to be. Well done to everybody who got involved!

Thanks for taking the time to give all that C&C ensoniq! Its good to stimulate everyone to improve their work.

About your image, as i said before I am not particularly fond of the floor texture, the blurry texture in combination with the blurry shadows (nice idea to do it like that! I'm not sure if its completely doable in anim8or to get it exactly right at the moment though.) The modeling looks good! Though the positioning of the glass in the frame isnt too exact.. i had a hard time with that as well Finally, the gold material couldve been a bit more reflective I think, but this shiny yellow just makes it look a bit more cheap, not less realistic

Thanks for the crits on my image, a lot of these issues ive thought about, but most of them came up during the rendering (while i was 2 days into the render) so i didnt really have a chance to change them. The glasses reflect the floor, but the floor is just a grey color :| thats why they dont look too shiny, i shouldve gone for something more to reflect haha! Ill keep your idea in mind about the rotation, i didnt know you could child object to one another! thanks.

I hope other people will benefit from your crits as well! See you the next challenge